


Fox, Inc.

by lusilly



Series: Earth-28 [15]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Bonding, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Interns & Internships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-01-17 12:36:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1387864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lusilly/pseuds/lusilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damian interns for Tam Fox for about three years. These are their stories.</p><p>To quote Matt Fraction: "The dog won't die and they won't fuck. The end." ("The dog," of course, representing Damian's interminable crush on his boss.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "But has that taught him any management skills?"

**Author's Note:**

> I blame tumblr user yancybecket.
> 
> There will be lots of chapters!! They will be super short ficlets :)
> 
> Per Earth-28 canon, Damian's about 18 here and has made a series of Poor Decisions over the past year.

            “Is he nice?” she asked seriously, hand tucked around a mug of coffee. “At least relative to your family, that is.”

            “Um, no,” said Tim, glancing at the door expectantly. “He’s not at all. I’m sure you will honestly despise him.”

            “Yeah, but I don’t trust your taste in guys. Plus it’s kind of too late to back out now, right?”

            “Kind of,” Tim replied, nodding, looking back at her. “Thank you, by the way. He’s still a kid, and he’s my little brother, legally, so I didn’t want to put him anywhere that mattered-”

            “Excuse me?”

            “I mean, I don’t want him doing anything that matters. With you probably he’ll just be answering calls and fetching coffee, which is probably good.”

            Tam watched Tim suspiciously. “He’s never worked a day in his life, has he?”

            “Other than going out on patrol every night and saving the world a couple times with his little group of superfriends, no, he hasn’t.”

            “But has that taught him any management skills?”

            “You know what,” said Tim, looking at her, “that’s exactly why I’m sending him to you. You can type up reports telling me whether or not he’ll be of any use in the future. That way I won’t have to deal with him.”

            “Wonderful,” she said, glowering in frustration. “I’m so glad that you’re assigning me the dregs of your family that you wouldn’t even put up with.”

            The door opened, and both Tim and Tam looked up. Damian entered the room, flanked by his father. His hair still looked damp and he smelled vaguely of orange peel and Chapstick; despite wearing a standard business suit, he seemed dressed casually, open and inviting and approachable. Tam had stared up and down his body three times before she realized what she was doing, and glanced away, closing her mouth.

            “Tam,” said Tim, glancing at her, “this is my brother Damian. Damian, this is Tam Fox, your new boss.”

            He held out a hand, which she took; surprising her, he lifted her hand to his mouth, and pressed his lips against her skin. “Please to meet you,” he said, letting go of her. “I look forward to work in your competent hands.”

            Beside her, she saw Tim roll his eyes, not even trying to disguise his disdain. “Well,” she began, “same to you. I mean, for the. Working for me, I mean. You in my hands.” She inwardly cringed, and Damian arched an eyebrow just slightly. She stopped, collected herself, and then said calmly, “I’ve heard some interesting things about you, Damian.”

            “Don’t believe anything he says,” he replied, nodding at Tim. “He’s jealous. Probably that I get to work under such a beautiful woman.”

            “Damian,” said Bruce lowly, at the exact moment that Tim began, “OK, maybe we should-” but then Tam glanced at him and said, “Hold on.”

            She looked towards Damian, whose smile had turned into something more like a smirk. “I never really got the whole pretty-boy persona thing,” she said seriously. “So you should know ahead of time that I’m not here for it. At all. OK? I don’t care what you do outside of my office as long as, when you’re in it, you’re useful, respectful, and decently good at your job. If you’re not good at it at first, that’s OK, I’ll teach you. But there’ll be a steep learning curve, and if you don’t get it - or choose not to do it right - then I don’t care what you or your brother or your daddy wants. I’m kicking you the hell out.” She paused, then glanced up at him. God, he was tall. “Are we clear?”

            His face was expressionless, but from the way Bruce and Tim watched him carefully, she suspected there was something behind his eyes she didn’t know him well enough yet to recognize. “We’re clear,” he said, finally. “Absolutely, Miss Fox.”

            “ _Ms_. Fox,” she corrected. “Good. You start on Monday. I suggest you familiarize yourself with my coffee preferences.” Damian blinked at her, but before he could say anything, he reached into her bag and retrieved a manila folder. “This is everything you need to know about being a good intern. Being  _my_ intern,” she said. “Memorize it. Make it your Bible. Tattoo it onto your skin, I don’t care, but know that when I walk into my office Monday morning at seven AM sharp, there better be a big cup of French dark roast coffee on my desk, with a splash of half-and-half and a teaspoon of Splenda.” She smiled at him, patted his shoulder affectionately, and said, “If you can do that, we’ll get along fine. It was nice meeting you, Damian.” She nodded at him, then his father. “Bruce. Tim, you’ll walk me out.”


	2. "That'll do, pig."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which: coffee.

            “You have a ten AM,” said Damian, handing her a cup of coffee as she sat down, “and a two PM. Tim expects those reports done by four-”

            “Which reports?” she asked, turning on her computer, sipping her coffee. “Those financial records?”

            “Yes. I’ve got them covered, they just need your signature.”

            “When will those be done?”

            Damian glanced at the clock on the wall, then said, “Half an hour, or so. Depending on whether or not Tim calls to dispute my designs.”

            “What designs?”

            “For the Martha Wayne Building,” said Damian distractedly, shuffling through some folders in his arms, tugging one out and laying it on Tam’s desk. “The community center add-on.”

            Tam looked up at him disbelievingly, swilling her coffee around in the tall thermos. “You’re designing that?” she asked him doubtfully. “As in, architecturally designing?”

            “Yes,” responded Damian. “Not by myself, of course. Hence why Tim would call me with his disputations.”

            “Disputations? Only you, Damian.”

            “Only me.” He began to say something else, but then the phone outside her office rang, and he sighed, “That’s him. Excuse me,” and slipped out of the office, folders still in hand. Glancing out the frosted glass at his vague, dark silhouette, she picked up the file he’d left with her. Then she looked back to her computer, and opened a document Tim had forwarded her.

            _Damian Wayne (18)_. She stared at that. _(18)_. Was that for real? She made a mental note to ask Tim about it, because she’d known a lot of eighteen-year-olds in her life and none of them had looked quite like Damian. He looked like he could be anywhere between (a very mature) eighteen and, like, thirty-five.

            Working on two degrees from Princeton. Not bad. She’d gone to Yale and so, of course, Princeton ain’t shit, but he was already in his final semester, having started when he was fifteen. Not bad at all. Finance and architecture; it made more sense, then, why Tim was allowing his brother, such a novice, to have some input on the new building. God, the kid must be busy. Interning, serious architectural design – she could hear him, outside her office, impatiently explaining something to Tim, on the phone – and then vigilante-ing at nighttime? Did he ever sleep?

            Thought about hitting her little phone-button. _Bzz. “Yes Ms. Fox?” “Damian? Do you ever sleep?”_ But then she decided against it. Didn’t want to get drunk on power too soon.

            She thought of the cautious way Bruce and Tim had both had their eye on him, when they introduced him. She thought, also, of the way that Tim had insisted on programming his number into both her personal and work phone on speed dial, and looked her in the eye and told her please _please_ let him know if Damian does anything, puts just one toe out of line. Part of her thought that this was just Tim desperate for an excuse to be mean to Damian, but she also had heard Tim’s vague statements about Damian being kind of bad lately, about him being useless and listless (something about going on a bender? Tam couldn’t even imagine). If this is what Damian needed to keep him out of trouble – to keep him healthy, maybe – then she didn’t mind.

            Plus he was nice to look at. She took another sip of her coffee, and then frowned.

            The second Damian put down the phone, still bristling at Tim’s refusal to trust him, there was another surprising _beep_ (he hadn’t yet fully learned how to use this painfully simple office telephone, and this upset him) and then Tam’s voice. “Damian,” she said.

            He looked at the phone, the experimentally pressed a button. “Yes?” he answered.

            “Get in here.”

            He almost sighed indignantly, but, really, didn’t terribly mind finding himself at the beck and call of a beautiful woman. Slipping into her office, hanging by the door, he asked, “You wanted to see me, Ms. Fox?”

            Without looking up at him, she held up her coffee cup and asked: “What is this?”

            He blinked at her. “Coffee,” he responded. “With a splash of half-and-half and a teaspoon of Splenda.”

            “Coffee,” she repeated bitterly, finally looking up, not at him but at the thermos in her hand. “French roast?”

            Damian looked at her, but didn’t respond immediately. Finally he began, “Well…”

            “One job,” she said, shaking her head. “You had _one_ job.”

            “Hold on,” said Damian, moving forward towards her desk, letting the door close behind him. “This building is stocked by a Starbucks blend-”

            “An _excellent_ Starbucks blend-”

            “-which does _not_ guarantee Fair Trade or organic-”

            “Organic?” she repeated, scandalized. “ _Organic?_ ”

            “You’re the Regional Coordinator of a charity organization, and yet you cannot spare any room in your personal habits for positive change?”

            “Oh, get out of my office,” she said, and the anger in her voice wasn’t entirely feigned. “Unless you sourced this goddamn coffee, ground it, and pressed it _yourself_ , just get out of my office. _One_ job.”

            Damian hovered, eyes flickering over to her, slightly awkwardly.

            Tearing her eyes from her computer screen, she looked at him. “Oh, God,” she sighed, leaning onto her desk. “You _did_ , didn’t you.”

            “My father has contacts on a coffee farm in Brazil-”

            “Because, naturally,” said Tam, sarcastically. “Did you _bring_ a coffeemaker with you to work, Damian?”

            “A French press,” he said defensively. “ _Tell_ me it’s not good, though. Say it to my face.”

            “Never say that to me again,” said Tam pointedly, looking at him. “I’m your boss, you’re my fresh-faced, teenage intern.” When he began to speak, she held up her hand to silence him, and then took another sip of her coffee. He almost rolled his eyes, defiantly crossing his arms. She said nothing, then took another sip, leaning the thermos up, sip turning into a long draught. And then she looked up at Damian.

            “Told you,” he said, as she simultaneously said, “It’s _OK._ ”

            He rolled his eyes, then turned to the door. “Anything else, Ms. Fox?”

            “Not right now, no,” she answered begrudgingly. “But next time, don’t change my coffee without permission. Don’t change anything without my explicit permission. I hate change.”

            “Ah,” he said. “I see why you’re the managerial lead of a highly delicate, mercurial company such as this.”

            “I get enough change as is in my business. I try to keep it out of my personal life.”

            “Noted. Does this mean we’re going back to Starbucks swill?”

            Tam considered this, watching him at the door. “No,” she said finally. “We can stick with this. Whatever it is.”

            “Fazenda Santa Ines. Minas Gerais.”

            “Yeah, that.”

            Damian watched her for just a moment, and then shook his head slightly. “That’s all?”

            “Yep. That’ll do, pig.” She wasn’t sure that Damian got the reference, and then felt kind of bad, then thought it was kind of funny. He left her office, going back to his desk, and she thought, for their first almost-argument, that had gone pretty well.


	3. "You're a good intern, Damian Wayne."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The copy machine is broken.

            “Hey,” said Tam, through a mouthful of burrito. She snapped her fingers, and Damian only looked back at her, taking great efforts not to roll his eyes. “Hey, hey, hey,” she continued, once she’d swallowed. “Those papers. Weren’t you supposed to get me those papers printed out?”

            “Yes,” responded Damian, nodding calmly. “I was. But the copy machine is broken.”

            Tam stared at him. “So…?”

            Damian returned her stare. “So,” he said, “I could not copy any paperwork.”

            “Damian. You are a grown-ass man.”

            “ _What_ did you just call me?”

            “You are a certified genius in, like, five different countries.” He looked confused at this, but before he could object, she continued, “Take off your damn jacket, find a screwdriver, and fix the machine, so you can get back to work.”

            “I _am_ doing work,” he protested. “I’ve been doing work this entire time. That reminds me, I sent Tim the finalized proofs-”

            “Did you fix the copy machine?”

            He looked affronted. “What? No. I was just-”

            “What use is genius,” she sighed, typing something in her computer, “if he cannot fix a simple damn copier?”

            Damian stared at her, gaping slightly. It occurred to Tam that it was entirely possible he had never in his life been spoken to like this. Somehow, this pleased her.

            “Fix it,” she said, eyes still glued to her computer, “by the end of the day.”

            He didn’t say anything. Then he closed his mouth, nodded his head slightly, and left.

            Two hours later, he returned, carrying a stack of papers in hand. He hefted them all onto her desk, and she purred appreciatively, “Excellent. Did you call maintenance?”

            It was almost worth it for the double-take he did. “No,” he said, indignantly. “I fixed it.”

            She raised an eyebrow, pulling the stack of papers to sit in front of her.

            “With a screwdriver,” he added, rather lamely.

            It took a moment, and then she actually laughed. “Oh, good,” she said. “Good job. You’re a good intern, Damian Wayne.”

            When he left her office, there was something suspiciously like pride blooming on his face.


	4. "Pescetarian, actually."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tam Fox foolishly agreed to let Damian bring her lunch.

            “It’s a super-food,” said Damian. “Everything in it is a super-food.”

            Tam looked down at the bowl before her suspiciously. “Super-food as in, you got this recipe straight from Superman? Or as in, you found it on one of your vegan-raw-fitspo food blogs?”

            “I am not any of those three things,” said Damian, rolling his eyes. “Just try it.”

            “No,” she said, flat-out, pushing it away from her. “It looks like a baby threw up in there.”

            “That’s the blueberry ginger dressing.”

            “ _Bl-_? God. You poor, poor child. Is this what they’ve been feeding you?”

            Annoyed, he replied, “I’m vegetarian by choice. As it is, complete nutrition is fairly important in my line of work-”

            “ _Your_ line of work,” she repeated. “Not mine. All I do is sit around at my desk all day. No need to diet.”

            “It’s not a _diet_. Merely a…shift. Less burgers and terrible-smelling burritos-”

            “You take that back, Damian Wayne.”

            “-and more salads. Salads stuffed with super-foods.”

            She groaned. “I _hate_ super-foods.”

            “Don’t be dramatic. It’s really just kale, and some broccoli, some beets, carrots, sunflower seeds-”

            “I hate _all_ of those things.”

            “It’s _good_ for you,” insisted Damian.

            “So’s going to the gym!” countered Tam. “You don’t see me doing that, do you?”

            He looked at her with an odd expression of concern mixed with curiosity on his face. “Why… I mean, how do you look so-”

            She wiped her eyes, somehow oddly emotional. “Vegetarian,” she said, shaking her head sadly. “By _choice_. I’m so sorry.”

            “Pescetarian, actually,” corrected Damian, and Tam let out a shriek of grief, and then sent him to Taco Bell for a XXL Grilled Double Stuft Burrito.


	5. Naked Pictures of Damian Wayne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Damian forgets to bring his makeup to work.

            Damian wasn’t at work when Tam got there, which was unusual. It was so unusual that it threw her off slightly; she hadn’t realized just how much she’d come to depend on his presence, sitting just outside her office, coming and going, bringing her coffee and papers and everything else.

            After the first ten minutes or so, and he still wasn’t there, Tam went out to his desk, poking around for his coffeemaker. She found an odd contraption which looked vaguely ominous but also slightly like it could be used to make coffee, but she had no idea how to use it, so she gave up and went back into her office, distracted and a little bit annoyed that he was late. Damian was never late. As she glanced over some reports for the day, she looked at her cell phone, glancing through her contacts. She had Damian’s number, but she only ever called him to direct him exactly what to get her at whatever fast food place she’d sent him to.

            And then, with a sense of odd relief, she heard someone come into the room adjacent to hers; from his familiar silhouette through the frosted glass, she could tell it was him. He placed his thin briefcase on the desk, and then, just as he was about to sit down, Tam prepared herself to press a button on her phone and ask him to come in, to ascertain why exactly he’d been late.

            But he surprised her first. He knocked shortly on her door, then opened it, one hand cupped around his eye, fingers brushing against his brow as if in pain. “Tam,” he said.

            “Damian,” she said, eyes narrowing at his expression, mostly hidden by his hand. “Are you hungover?”

            “No,” he replied. “Sorry I’m late.”

            “Yeah, you best be sorry. I haven’t had any coffee today and I’m starting to get withdrawal symptoms. Look, my hand is shaking.”

            He didn’t move. And then he shifted slightly, uncomfortably, and said, “I’ll get your coffee started in just one moment.” He didn’t move, and Tam got the distinct impression he had more to say. Then: “This may seem like a strange request, but…do you have any makeup?”

            She stared at him. “What?” she asked.

            “Just some concealer would be fine.”

            She watched him for a second, then said, “I mean…no. Nothing that would match your skin tone, that is.”

            He stood there for a moment, and she realized that she knew him well enough to detect the frustration in his stance.

            “Why?” she asked. “Got a big zit you need to cover up?”

            For a moment, he didn’t move. And then he stepped away from the door, letting it close behind him, and took his hand away from his face.

            “Holy _shit_ ,” said Tam, staring up at him. And then she got to her feet, and went over to him. He was a lot taller than she was, but she gingerly reached up and took his face, turning it sideways, displaying the huge, ugly, purple bruise on his face, tinged yellow around the edges. There was a scrape down the middle, a gross, raw reddish-pink. “What the fuck _happened?_ ”

            He seemed taken aback, but at her hands on his face or her swearing, she couldn’t tell. “Nothing much,” he replied, but before he continued, she cut him off.

            “Oh, don’t give me that tough guy bullshit,” she said. “Come here.”

            She went behind him and pushed him over to the seat before her desk, sitting him down and then fetching a mini first aid kit out from her desk. Squeezing some Neosporin out of a tube, she applied it to the scrape. “I already cleaned it,” he said patiently. “Tam, please. As if I don’t know how to deal with a minor injury.”

            “Well, you had to ask me for makeup.”

            “I didn’t realize it was going to look this bad.”

            “Did you get this – I mean, like, on patrol-?”

            Damian didn’t reply immediately, and then he sighed, “No.”

            “No?”

            “This morning,” he said, closing his eyes. “There was an…altercation outside.”

            “You got in a fight? You got in a fight _right_ outside of my office building?”

            “No,” he replied indignantly, annoyed. “It was about a block away, there was a young woman, there was a thief, there was an accomplice I didn’t see. Like a complete _amateur_ , I got hit before I could incapacitate them both.”

            “How do you mean _incapacitate?_ ”

            “I broke their fingers,” he replied. “Then left them unconscious, called the police, and rode the rest of the way here. I gave the woman a ride, too. That’s why I was late.”

            “Right, because a young woman would feel completely comfortable getting into a car with you, after witnessing you beat two dudes unconscious.”

            “Considering how I saved her from assault,” he said, suddenly cold, “I would hope that she felt safe around me.” He batted her hand away from his face and added, “And it wasn’t a car, I don’t drive a car.”

            She raised an eyebrow. “Then how did you give her a ride?”

            “I have a motorcycle.”

            “You ride a motorcycle to _work?_ ”

            “Yes,” he said, somewhat defiantly.

            She didn’t say anything for a moment, then asked, “Do you have a motorcycle jacket?”

            He looked at her, perplexed and still slightly irritated, then said, “Yes, Tamara, I do own a motorcycle jacket. I hang it up right behind my desk every single day.”

            Tam stared at him. “How did I not know this about you?” she asked, vaguely.

            Glumly, Damian reached up and pressed his fingers against the bruise, wincing slightly as he did so; she took his hands away from his face and said, “Stop poking it, you’ll only make it worse. Let me get you some ice.”

            “It’s fine,” said Damian. “I just need something to cover it up.”

            “Let me get you some ice,” she repeated. “And then I’ll run out to the drugstore and get you something that’ll match your skin tone better.”

            “Well, if we’ve come to that,” he said irascibly, “I may as well go myself-”

            “No,” said Tam stubbornly. “You’ll sit here and ice your battle wounds. Besides, come on. A grown man buying himself concealer with a bruise like that? People will start saying terrible things about Bruce.”

            “Oh, wow,” replied Damian sarcastically, “that would be a change.”

            “Stay here,” she said again, getting to her feet. “I’ll be right back with your ice. Don’t touch anything. Especially not my computer. Especially not the folder on my desktop titled ‘Naked Pictures of Damian Wayne.’”

            Despite himself, Damian shot a dopey, glowing little grin towards her. Inwardly, Tam fist-pumped victoriously. _So he does have a sense of humor_.

            “You’re a good boy, Damian,” she said, patting him gently on the top of the head. Damn, he had nice hair, and she tried not to mess it up, barely touching it at all. “You’re a good intern, too, but that’s less important.”

            “What?” he asked, feigning shock. “There is something more important to Tam Fox than _work?_ ”

            “Yes,” said Tam, at the door, rolling her eyes. “ _You_ are, Damian,” she said, and then she left the office, and he sat there alone, blinking at where she had been standing, something very warm blooming in his chest.


	6. Cabo Spring Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tam accepts Damian's Facebook request.

            Damian could honestly not decide whether he was ashamed or just plain fucking delighted that Tam had accepted his friend request on her personal account, and that she had an entire photo album titled _Cabo Spring Break_. Don’t do it, he thought, clicking through the pictures of Tam in a bikini (so tame, yet so inexplicably hot). You’re stronger than this. You were genetically engineered into perfection. You’ve been trained by some of the finest minds in the world. Hell, you probably _are_ the finest mind in the world.

            Less than ten minutes later, stuffing a wad of tissues in the trash, he decided, no, yeah, definitely it was shame he was feeling.


	7. "The French, presumably."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tam and Damian pull their first all-nighter together.

            “Is this a _joke?_ Are you _joking?_ You better be, because this is unacceptable. I expected this work done last week. I was depending on _your_ services to do my damn job. Excuse me? No, sir, with all due respect, shut up while I’m talking, OK? OK. You are absolutely _not_ getting paid in full, and even then, not until you’re all done. Do you understand me? OK, perfect. Now it’s time for you to do _your_ damn job. Are we-” Tam broke off, furious, gaping at the phone before her. “How dare you!” she almost shouted, at the phone. “You can’t _hang up on_ -”

            There was a loud knock, and then Damian opened the door. “Tamara,” he said, eyes hooded and quietly angry, the tension in his jaw betraying his irritation. “I know this is a difficult request, but is there _any_ way you could please use your indoor voice, when you’re indoors?”

            “Oh, don’t give me that,” Tam shot back angrily, slamming her phone down. “ _All_ our medical equipment for the new clinic has been put on hold for another week, which means we have to push back the opening, _again_. Not to mention the fact that I’m still sifting through last month’s financial records.”

            “I _finished_ those for you,” said Damian belligerently, but Tam silenced him.

            “I know you did,” she replied, with no kindness in her voice. “I just need to finish reviewing them before we send them out to Tim.”

            “Why can’t you just sign off on them?”

            “Because you’re an unpaid intern, and somebody on the payroll should double-check the numbers, just to be responsible.”

            “You don’t trust me?”

            “Of _course_ I trust you!” she snapped, angry now. “But I didn’t make it to regional coordinator by letting _eighteen-year-olds_ do my fucking job for me, Damian, so shut up and don’t argue with me right now, OK?”

            Damian didn’t move for a moment, mouth hanging slightly open in surprise. Tam squinted at the records before her, shuffling through the papers, and then she looked back up at him again.

            “It’s almost seven,” she said, relenting. “You can go home.”

            Damian shook his head. “I have something to finish, as well.”

            “Really?” she asked, glancing back down at her papers. “And what would that be?”

            For a second, Damian didn’t say anything. And then, still at the door, he answered: “Tim’s contractor rejected my designs. He says they violate Gotham City building codes, which is patently not true, but, predictably, Tim has sided against me. I’m redoing the whole thing.”

            She looked up at this, taken aback. “The whole thing?” she asked. “Doesn’t Tim have, like, a team for that?”

            “I said I’d do this,” said Damian.

            “Yeah, but that’s just cruel-”

            “I said _I’d_ do this,” repeated Damian stubbornly. “I told him _one_ thing. If I can’t manage that, then he gets to say he’s right about me and I’ll just be even more annoyed than usual.”

            “What do you mean, he’d say he’s right about you?”

            Damian just shook his head. Then, curtly, he said: “Tim doesn’t think I can do anything right. True as that may be, I have no desire to give him another excuse to treat me like it.”

            “Oh, it’s not true,” said Tam. “You do my coffee right.”

            He almost narrowed his eyes. “I changed your coffee completely.”

            “Yeah, well,” she shrugged. “I kind of like it better your way.” She paused, then said, “Speaking of, go grab your weird European coffeepot-”

            “ _Cafetiére_ ,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s called a _cafetiére_.”

            “-and make us both a couple cups. We’re gonna need it tonight.”

            “I don’t drink coffee,” he said.

            “Well, we’re definitely gonna break that out of you,” she said pointedly. “It’s past closing time, you can come join me in here. Look, I have a whole table at which your artistic genius can thrive.” She gestured to the round meeting table in the corner of her large office. “I bet your desk is too small for the creative juices to really flow.”

            Did he – did he _blush?_

            Dutifully, though, he brought his work into her office, and then he brought the press coffeemaker, and then at least two other small machines. “ _Oh_ my God,” said Tam, disbelievingly, when Damian poured a handful of beans into one of the machines, closed the lid, and grinding the beans. “You’re _fucking_ me,” she said, as he poured water into the electric kettle and plugged it into an outlet on the wall. “What the fuck,” she said, now fascinated, as he poured the hot water into the press, and let it steep. “Who invented this?” she asked, in awe.

            “The French, presumably,” he replied, pressing down on the plunger. “This really should not be so shocking to you. Also, how did you become regional manager of a youth-based charity organization when you have such a fantastically dirty mouth?”

            “Grown-ups say bad words sometime, Damian. One day you’ll get used to it. Fuck, that is a lot of goddamn work for one cup of coffee.” He poured it into her mug, added a splash of creamer and Splenda, then handed it to her. She took a sip, and moaned. “ _Fuck_ , it’s good, though.”

            “I’m glad you like it,” he said, amused. “Get back to those financial records.”

            “And you get back to your pretty drawings,” she said, nodding at the table. She went back to her desk, setting the coffee down, and then looked up at him. “Oh, wait,” she said. “Shit. Do you have, like. Do you have to be somewhere tonight? You know? Doing the thing?”

            “The thing?” he repeated, one eyebrow raised.

            “You _know_ what thing.”

            He shook his head slightly, with a shrug. “I’m…less involved in that, lately,” he said, “to be honest. Really, they gave me this job to keep me from sleeping during the day, thus giving them an excuse to prevent me from going out at night.”

            “Them?” echoed Tam.

            “My father,” replied Damian. “And Tim.”

            “Tim,” said Tam, “who doesn’t believe you can do anything right.”

            “The very same.”

            There was a short silence. And then Tam said, “Sometimes he can be a pile of dicks.”

            Damian actually laughed. “He only wishes.”

            Damian had to make coffee three more times during that night, and Tam got so tired of reviewing the numbers that she started reading it aloud to Damian, letting him mentally check the math. When the numbers got into six figures and beyond, Tam found herself intrigued by the speed and nonchalance with which Damian would respond, and she started to make up numbers, and then she Googled some differential equations to read out loud to him. She was particularly proud of one which took her almost thirty seconds to read aloud in its entirety, and which caused Damian to pause almost as long, frowning slightly, before answering, “Function of X equals X-squared plus c-sub-one over two X plus two.” When she asked, “What does that look like?” he tore off a sheet of paper, sketched a graph, and held it up to her.

            At fourAM, his cell phone rang, and he went outside of her office, but she could hear practically every word. “I’m at work. I swear to God I’m at work. No! Of course not, I would _never_ – I’m _doing_ work, Father, please, why do you _always_ assume – it’s been almost a _year_ now, why won’t you let that – no! Not until I’m – _Father!_ I’m-” he stopped abruptly, and it was silent outside her office for an entire minute before he came back in, tight-lipped and ashen-faced.

            “Do you need to go home?” she asked, watching him sit back down before his work. He didn’t answer right away.

            And then, lowly, he said, “No. Not right now.”

            They worked in silence for almost another hour, and then Damian sighed and placed his pencil down.

            “Now, maybe,” he said.

            “You want a ride?” she asked, sipping her fourth cup of coffee.

            “No, thanks.”

            He stood up, collecting his things. She watched him for a little bit, then asked, “Was your dad mad at you?”

            “No,” answered Damian. “I was mad at him.”

            “For?”

            “For being as concerned as a father should be,” he sighed. “For treating me my age.”

            “Those are bad things?”

            He glanced up at her, eyebrows raised. “Have you met me?” he asked.

            “Fair point,” she replied. “You need me to write you a note?”

            When he looked at her again, it was almost in confusion. “For what?” he asked.

            “Like a,” she began uncertainly, “like a late note. Like a teacher’s note.” He eyed her suspiciously, and she said, “I forgot, sorry. You never went to school.”

            “Princeton.”

            “That’s not _school_. That’s college.”

            He smiled at her slightly, and said, “I got a lot of work done.”

            “Me too,” she said. “And I sincerely enjoyed your coffee.”

            “I’m happy for you.”

            “See you tomorrow.”

            “Today, in fact,” said Damian, heading towards the door. “You should go to sleep.”

            “I’ll sleep with I’m dead,” she declared, and his expression faltered so vulnerably at this, it actually hurt her. “I mean,” she began, “not tonight. I mean. Yeah. More coffee tomorrow morning, Damian.”

            “You have an addiction,” he said.

            “I do,” she admitted. “Go home, kid.”

            He hovered for just a moment, and then he said, “Goodnight,” and he was gone.


	8. Baby Aspirin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason is injured; naturally, he scales Wayne Tower to solicit Damian's help.

          “Yes,” said Damian patiently. “Absolutely. The nineteenth? Two PM? Excellent. Thank you. Have a nice day.”

            Damian hung up the phone, then turned, pen in hand, and neatly checked off an item from a small notepad beside him. It was barely past noon and he had been incredibly efficient already, scheduling three high profile meetings for Tam, finishing the last of the financial records for this month (a week early, he couldn’t wait to see the look on Tim’s face when he couldn’t think of anything insulting to say), and had reorganized his desk, locking the door for a few minutes to furtively install the fake bottom on his lower drawer, under which he hid nothing more incriminating than an emergency commlink and a new first aid kit he’d just brought from the Cave. And a high-voltage taser and a thick dagger, but those were less important, he thought. He’d have to talk with Tim about how easy it was to smuggle potentially deadly weapons into the building. Dangerous.

            Double-checking Tam’s schedule to ensure she wasn’t expecting any meetings for another hour or so, he went ahead and turned on some music from a Pandora station he’d hacked to only play precisely what he wanted. He hummed along to a Kanye song, reviewing the contractor’s correspondence for the Martha Wayne Building, which was to begin construction within the next few months, pleased with himself.

            There was an odd, low banging, and at first Damian ignored it. Then it happened again, louder, and Damian glanced around, unsure from where it was coming, and then-

            Instantly, he was at the window, twisting the handle to open it. “Jason,” he hissed through the windowscreen in disbelief. “What the hell are you doing here?”

            “Bleeding, mostly,” replied Jay, helmet obscuring his face. He was hanging from the sheer glass window paneling by some device, the other hand clutching his abdomen. When he lifted his jacket slightly, Damian could see a deep crimson stain spreading on his chest. “Can I come in?”

            “You’re twenty-two stories up,” said Damian, still disbelieving. “How did you get this far up when you’re bleeding out?”

            “Well,” said Jay, huffing slightly at the difficulty of holding himself up, “I jumped out of a plane?”

            “Go home,” said Damian.

            “I could die,” said Jay pointedly.

            “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

            “Still would suck.” Damian seemed to consider this for a long moment. Jay let out an emphatic groan, and Damian sighed and left the window. “Aw, please, kid-”

            “It’s the middle of the day,” replied Damian, locking the door, then returning to the window, carefully prying his fingers around the edges of the screen. “I am at my work.”

            “They don’t even pay you,” said Jay with relief, as he slipped his legs into the window, and Damian caught him under the shoulder, helping the older man over to his desk. Letting out another groan, he sank into Damian’s seat, closing his eyes. “It’s not real work.”

            “Right, because what you do is real work.”

            “I get money. Lots and lots and lots of money.”

            “Drug money.”

            “The best kind.” Damian knelt by his desk; despite himself, he was actually pleased that he got the chance to use the fake bottom to his lower drawer, retrieving that first aid kit already. As he pulled it out and placed it out on the desk, Jay glanced at it and almost laughed. “Good Boy Scout,” he said, amused. “Always prepared.”

            “I’m not a Boy Scout,” replied Damian mildly, opening the kit and inspecting the contents. “I actually am ideologically opposed to being a Boy Scout.”

            “Ay, good for you. Fuck, you got any painkillers?”

            “No, I don’t. Take off your shirt.”

            “Why, Damian,” said Jason cheerfully, “I didn’t you you felt that-”

            “Incredible. You’re asking me to tend to your wounds and you still make bad gay jokes.”

            Jay lost the heavy jacket, then weakly began to slip off his shirt. “I’ll make bad gay jokes ‘til I die, and then probably some more, with my luck.” He struggled with getting it off completely, having difficulty lifting his arms. Damian helped him, watching with an objective sort of concern.

            “You’ve lost a lot of blood already,” murmured Damian, taking Jay’s wrist, feeling his pulse. “You need a hospital.”

            “Sure, I’ll just grab my insurance card-”

            “You need to lay down, so I can stitch your wounds.”

            “I also need painkillers.”

            Ignoring this, Damian opened another drawer and cleared his desk, then gestured for Jay to stretch out on it.

            “Hey,” said Jay, as he sat down on the desk, grinning up at Damian. “One time I saw a gay porn that started like this.”

            “Lay down, you piece of shit,” said Damian.

            “Awesome,” replied Jay, lying down, “you know your lines already.”

            When Damian applied an antibiotic cream, Jason hissed in pain, and Damian rolled his eyes, deliberately poking at the wound. “Child,” Damian murmured, shaking his head. “You’d think a man who’s experienced death could deal with pain better-”

            “Can we please stop talking about when I died,” Jay said, through gritted teeth, “and focus on not letting me die now?”

            Damian shed his business jacket and rolled up his sleeves, breaking off a length of thread with his teeth. “You should’ve gone home,” he said, shaking his head. “Alfred could take care of you much better than-”

            “Let’s be real, Damian, I wasn’t going to make it a single mile out of the city.”

            The phone rang. Damian stared at it for a second, then looked at his hands, which were smeared with antibiotic cream and blood. “Don’t say anything,” he said to Jay, harshly, and then, grimacing, he pushed a button on the phone with his only clean finger, his left pinky. “Tam.”

            “Damian,” she replied; she was one room away but he knew how much she delighted in using the phone to contact him, how much she thought that showed she was so unconcerned. “Who are you talking to?”

            “What?”

            “I can hear you talking to someone, and nobody’s knocked on my door for a meeting, so…”

            Damian hesitated for a moment, then said, “A friend.”

            “Friend? Come on, Damian, this is work, not Weenie Hut Junior’s.

            “For the last time, what does that even _mean_ -?”

            “It means send your nerd friends home and go back to doing your job.”

            “Rude,” said Damian. “He’s right here.”

            “Hello, Damian’s nerd friend,” came Tam’s voice, from the phone. “Go home.”

            “OK,” replied Jay, and Damian shot him a fierce look, but Tam didn’t immediately reply.

            Then the clicking sound of the phone hanging up, and a moment later the door separating their offices opened and Tam stepped out.

            She gaped at the scene before her. Jay, shirtless and bleeding on Damian’s desk, and Damian with his sleeves rolled up and tie thrown behind his shoulder so it wouldn’t drag across Jason’s wounds. “Yo, Tam,” said Jay mildly. “How are you?”

            “What’s going on?” she asked.

            “Jason is bleeding,” replied Damian.

            “I can see that,” she said. “Why is he here?”

            “Because I would like to be not-bleeding,” offered Jay helpfully.

            Tam stared at him. “Is that not what hospitals are for?”

            “I am a criminal drug lord who is officially dead,” said Jay reasonably. “Obamacare don’t cover that.”

            “I don’t know,” muttered Damian, taking advantage of Jay’s distraction to begin stitching him up. “Being a foolish dumbass probably qualifies as a pre-existing condition.”

            “Ow!”

            “I feel woozy,” said Tam, eyes fixed on Jay’s wound.

            “Damian!” said Jay, smacking the kid’s hands away. “Help the lady!”

            “Stop that,” Damian snapped, “or I will stick this in your eye.”

            “Fine,” said Jay. “Eyepatches are cool.” He was joking, but his discomfort was so obvious that even Tam could see it, written plainly on his face.

            Damian noticed her look of concern and, glancing up at her, murmured, “Go get him some water. He’ll need it to recover after this.”

            “What happened?” she asked, her voice hushed, but Damian shook his head.

            “Water,” he said. “He needs it.”

            Finally, she tore her gaze away from Jay to look at Damian, and then she nodded, and left. As Damian worked on Jay, hurrying to close the wound before she returned, there were a few moments of silence, except for Jay’s slight grunts of pain.

            Damian said: “This is shitty of you.”

            Jay didn’t open his eyes, but asked, “What is?”

            “I know you didn’t come here for me.”

            Jay didn’t reply to this immediately. And then he said, “Who else was I gonna ask? I didn’t intentionally get near-fatally wounded just to get some attention from Nurse Tam. Or you.”

            Damian gave a skeptical half-shrug. “Wouldn’t surprise me if you did.”

            There was a silence between them, and Jay found himself suddenly profoundly annoyed with Damian, so he didn’t say anything. And then, tapping his fingers loudly against the desk, he asked, “God damn, how long does it take to get a fucking glass of water?”

            As soon as he finished the sentence, he heard the door open and close behind him. Glancing around as best he could, splayed out on the desk, he looked around to see Tam watching him, unamused. “It’s a fucking jug, thank you,” she said, placing the container on the desk, along with a small cup. “And you’re welcome.”

            She looked at Damian and asked, “Can I do anything else to help?”

            Damian shook his head and murmured a thank you, but before Tam turned away, Jay said, “Painkillers. I am all about painkillers.”

            Tam looked at him for one moment, then turned on her heel and headed back into her office. Jay let out a small, listless sigh. Despite himself, Damian felt a small surge of triumph. Wiping his hands, he said smoothly, “That went well.”

            “Shut the fuck up.”

            To both of their surprise, Tam returned a few minutes later. “Here,” she said to Jay, who, with great difficulty, managed to sit up and take whatever she was offering him.

            “What?” he asked, inspecting the round orange pills. “The fuck are these?”

            “Tamara,” said Damian, looking at her. “He doesn’t need medication.”

            “This? For the pain?” he asked. “Is this some kind of highly potent illegal drug I haven’t yet heard of?”

            “That’s baby aspirin,” said Damian.

            “You should take, like, five,” said Tam.

            Jay stared at her. “OK,” he said. “How ‘bout the whole bottle?”

            “It’s the drowsy kind,” she said. “Too much and you’ll get sleepy.”

            “I think all two hundred and twenty pounds of pure muscle of me will be all right,” he said doubtfully, popping the lid.

            “You should eat something first, too,” reminded Tam, and Jay caught Damian hiding a small smile, and for some reason this seriously bothered him.

            “Ms. Fox,” said Jay graciously, bowing his head slightly, “I think I’ll be OK.” With that, he tipped the bottle back into his mouth, pouring baby aspirin down his throat.

            An hour later, Jay was out cold in Damian’s office chair, sagging loosely and snoring incredibly loudly. Damian had finished cleaning everything up, although there was blood on his sleeve that would definitely stain. He wrote himself a mental note to get Jay to pay for his dry-cleaning.

            Tam leaned against Damian’s desk, watching Jay with far too much fondness. “He’s kind of cute, isn’t he?” she asked affectionately, eyes focused on the man in the seat.

            “No,” answered Damian honestly. “He’s practically a monstrosity.”

            “Don’t be mean.”

            “I can be mean. That was _not_ mean. Also you have another appointment in about half an hour. What do we do?”

            Tam considered this a long moment, then said, “There’s a utility closet just outside-”

            “No!” replied Damian immediately, cutting her off. “We’re not shoving my injured brother into a closet.”

            “Aw,” said Tam, looking over at him. “Looking out for your big bro, D?”

            “No,” said Damian, watching Jay grimly. “I just know that if some poor custodian startles him awake, he will probably stab them.”

            “Weapons strip search first?”

            Damian rolled his eyes. “You wish, don’t you?” he asked bitterly.

            “Well,” said Tam, “then what? We can’t just wake him up and send him on his way. He’s so out of it, he’ll hurt himself.”

            For a long moment, Damian considered this, eyes fixed on Jay, jaw working silently. Obviously he had already come to the most logical conclusion, but clearly didn’t want to say it. Finally, he relented. “I’ll take him home,” he said.

            “You can take my car,” said Tam, leaning against the desk. “He’ll fall right off your motorcycle.”

            With a small shake of his head, Damian said, “No, that’s fine. Tim has spare cars in the garage.”

            “Which garage?”

            “The secret one,” said Damian, glancing at her. “Only accessed by those with top-level Batman, Inc. clearance.”

            Tam narrowed her eyes slightly. “Are you for real?”

            “Of course I’m not for real,” he replied, rolling his eyes. “They’re called company cars, Tam, they’re out back.”

            There was a slight pause, and Damian watched her, as if waiting for her approval. Then she looked at him, and she nodded. “OK,” she said. “You take him. You need my help?”

            “It’s fine,” answered Damian, producing a keycard out of nowhere. “Being a Wayne working in Wayne Tower has its benefits,” he told her, “a private elevator chief among them.”

            Tam looked down at Jason, who slept in Damian’s seat. The moment lingered far too long, and Damian had to look away, feeling as if he were intruding on a private moment.

            Then, without glancing up, she said, “Make sure to button your jacket. And change when you get home. Your shirt is covered in blood.”

            Damian reached out and slapped Jay gently on the face; the man didn’t stir. “I’m not going home,” he replied matter-of-factly, slapping Jason again. The other man groaned, but didn’t open his eyes. “There’s a safehouse on Kane,” Damian murmured. “I think it’s his favorite, although that may be the one past Second.”

            Batting Damian’s hands away, she reached out and brushed her fingers across Jason’s cheek, along the stubble there. “Why wouldn’t you just bring him home?” she asked, still not looking away from Jay.

            “Are you joking?” he asked her. “Bring a bleeding, half-dead Jason Todd who forced me to play doctor in my place of work, into my father’s house?” He let out a humorless bark of a laugh. “Only if I wanted the two of them to try to kill each other.”

            Tam didn’t say anything for a moment, then finally looked up. “Your dad doesn’t really hate him,” she said, although she sounded uncertain.

            Damian considered this for a moment. “No,” he admitted. “But I bet your father does.”

            “Yeah, but,” Tam countered, “only one of us here really cares what their parents say we can and can’t do, so.”

            This chilled Damian, and Tam didn’t see it immediately. Then he gently pushed her away, and made a fist, and punched Jason in the face.

            Although Tam called out his name, shocked, Jason did indeed wake up, and Damian shot a pointed glare her way. “Come on,” said Damian to Jay, getting to his feet from off the desk. “I’m taking you home.”

            Groggily, Jason squinted around at them, and asked, “Where am I…?”

            “Come on,” said Damian again, lowering himself to pull Jason’s arm around his shoulder. “Can you walk?”

            “Tam?” asked Jay, looking up at her. “Are you…”

            He trailed off; Damian glanced between Jason and Tam, unsure of what the other man was about to say.

            Tam only held up a little plastic bottle, shaking the contents inside. “Baby aspirin,” she said. “That’s what happened, Jason.”

            He blinked at her, and then nodded. Damian rolled his eyes, and began to move; but before they took two steps, Tam darted forward, and she quickly put her lips on the side of Jason’s face, patting him on the shoulder. “Be OK,” she said to him, kindly. “It would really, really suck if you died, you know.”

            “Yeah,” grunted Jay, “no kidding.”

            “Thank you, Tam,” said Damian loudly, half-dragging Jason towards the door. “If Tim asks, cover me.”

            “Uh-huh. Be safe,” she said, but Damian was already out the door, glancing across the empty hallway, and hauling Jason into the private elevator.          

            Tam stood there for a moment. There was a spot of blood left on Damian’s chair. She went to the bathroom, wet a wad of toilet paper, and wiped it up.

            Twenty minutes later, she had her meeting with a high-level NK donor, and not long after that, Damian returned, and they didn’t talk about Jay.


End file.
